Alberta Premier Alison Redford is shown with her now-former chief of staff Stephen Carter in Calgary on Nov. 10, 2011. Carter ended speculation Oct. 11, 2013, when he revealed the amount of severance he received was $130,000.

Albertans won’t have to wait for a new disclosure policy to take effect to find out how much money Premier Alison Redford’s former chief of staff received as severance.

Stephen Carter, who worked as the premier’s top adviser until April 2012, tweeted Friday morning that “in respect for the Premier's demand for openness, the amount of my severance was $130,000.”

Opposition Leader Danielle Smith said Friday the amount seems high, but the premier’s office should release all of the details of the compensation – along with all of the other severance packages paid by Redford’s office. Smith also wonders why a staff member in the premier’s office who left his position voluntarily received any severance at all.

“It looks like he was paid six months of severance for six months of work, which I think by anybody’s estimation is pretty rich,” Smith told Global News. “You don’t see those kinds of severances in the private sector… it just does not pass the reasonable person test.”

Likewise, Derek Fildebrandt of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said the payment to Carter is unreasonable.

“I’m glad he finally released it, but $130,000 – I guess there was a reason the government wanted to keep that secret,” he said in an interview Friday.

“Traditionally you get two to three weeks for every year you’ve worked. That’s far out of line…. Which is potentially why Mr. Carter and the government went so far out of their way to keep it hidden.”

Carter was not available for comment on Friday.

The surprise disclosure comes a day after Redford’s Progressive Conservative government faced scathing criticism for not releasing Carter’s severance.

Opposition parties said Thursday the premier’s office’s refusal to abide by a call from the information and privacy commissioner to disclose severance paid to Carter raised concerns he’d received public compensation for his service as a political operative.

Speaking to reporters in Medicine Hat before the new disclosure policy was announced, Redford insisted the appropriate rules were being followed in the case.

“It’s not for me to step in to release a document or to not release a document. I don’t actually have a role in the process,” she said.

Later Thursday, Redford released a statement saying she’d instructed Don Scott — associate minister of accountability, transparency and transformation in the Tory government — to implement a new “proactive” policy around disclosing salary and severance information for senior government employees.

Redford said the new policy would expand and replace the existing release of compensation information in the government’s annual report. “It is my intention that this disclosure would be retroactive to the day this government was sworn in,” she said in the statement.

An official within the premier’s office confirmed the new policy “will cover Carter’s contract and severance” since it was paid out after the Progressive Conservative government was re-elected in April of 2012.

“Minister Scott has to go and do some work to figure out what this looks like, he has to make sure that we’re balancing all of the privacy issues that come around disclosing contracts,” said Neala Barton, the premier’s spokeswoman.

“But certainly I think by the end of the year is what I expect the timeline that we’re looking at.”

Carter, who now works in the private sector, became Redford’s chief of staff after managing her successful bid to become leader of the Progressive Conservative party in 2011.

He left the $265,000-per-year post to work as a strategist for the Tories’ election campaign leading up to the April 2012 vote. Critics and media — including the Herald — have been trying to get his severance made public through freedom of information requests.

On Thursday, Smith said the severance paid to Carter is “basic public information” that should be released.

The fact Redford was defying a ruling from the privacy commissioner’s office raised troubling questions about how public dollars are being used, Smith said before the government’s new policy was unveiled.

Smith questioned why Carter was paid severance at all.

Later Thursday evening, Smith issued a statement accusing the premier of flip-flopping with her new stance and saying Redford should release the information immediately.

“After saying this morning, she had no control over the release of Mr. Carter’s severance information, tonight she has backtracked, saying that she will change the policy and release this information — but only well after her leadership vote has taken place,” said Smith, referring to the upcoming PC party leadership review in November.

“Make no mistake, the premier knows that legally she will be forced to eventually release this information and has therefore created a path to ensure its disclosure at a politically convenient time.”

The executive council — which includes the premier’s office — has so far refused to comply with an Oct. 4 deadline imposed by the privacy commissioner’s office to release the information.

The ruling was handed down last month by Catherine Taylor, an investigator with the privacy commissioner’s office, in response to a freedom of information request made last year by Global News.

Carter declined to comment Thursday when contacted by Postmedia.

NDP Leader Brian Mason said the message is that the government is not as committed to openness and transparency as it claims to be.

“They’ve got something to hide with the question of Mr. Carter’s severance and I want to know what it is, and I think the public does, too,” Mason said.

Liberal Leader Raj Sherman echoed that view: “This sum that she paid him must be huge, otherwise why would the premier hide how much was paid?”

Earlier this year, the premier’s office disclosed to the Herald that $2.1 million in severance had been paid to former staffers there since 2010, but the government won’t say how much each person was paid, or even how many severance packages were paid out.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation said the Tory was “dead wrong” in not disclosing payments to Redford’s former chief of staff.

But the move to release salary and severance information for senior government employees is positive, said Fildebrandt. He wants to see all government salaries over $100,000 revealed to the public, mirroring so-called “sunshine laws” in other provinces.

“They may have been wrong off the top, but they’re definitely right now,” he added.

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